


Toast Hawaii

by justahappylittletree



Category: Dark (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mikkel deserves better, Mild Fluff, Parent-Child Relationship, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:00:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28482786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justahappylittletree/pseuds/justahappylittletree
Summary: Now that Mikkel will be born soon, (Me. That's me. I'm going to be born soon.)what is he meant to do? Watch himself grow up and make memories that Michael has already made? Have the same wretched fate that he already has? Live the same lies? Lose everything before he even knows what he has to lose?...Michael Kahnwald makes Toast Hawaii and contemplates his impossible situation.
Relationships: Hannah Kahnwald/Michael Kahnwald | Mikkel Nielsen, Jonas Kahnwald & Michael Kahnwald | Mikkel Nielsen
Comments: 21
Kudos: 36
Collections: Kahnwald Collection





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> TW: suicidal ideation is present in this fic.

It doesn't mean anything when Michael can't sleep. Or so he tells himself.

He sits up in bed, next to him Hannah snores quietly, and tries to hold in a gasp. A cry. _Mama._ No. He can't afford to think backwards. He has a good life now, right? Don't think about how things used to be. How they _could_ have been. Michael has a wife whom he loves and a son he would do anything for. He has to at least try and be content with that. 

_Mama._

He doesn't want to think about what will happen if he doesn't at least try.

_Mama._

With a sigh, Michael slips out of the bed and tiptoes down the stairs. His hands shake a little. Have things really changed all that much since the first day he arrived in 1986?

He opens the fridge, takes the milk bottle in his hands ( _-hands that shake. The bottle is cold. Too cold and dull and heavy- )_ and unscrews the cap. It smells fine. All the same he screws the cap back on and puts the bottle back in the fridge with a hollow clink of glass. He doesn't think he can stomach drinking any. He sits at the table with a sigh.

It's like it was in 1986 all over again. The fear. The loneliness. The empty hope. Except nowadays he hides it better. Avoids Katharina and Ulrich ( _Mom and Dad_ ) as much as possible. _He_ hasn't even been _born_ yet. Mikkel Nielsen doesn't exist. Yet, Michael is right here. They are both joined and separate. They are the same and still Michael wonders what he's going to do when Mikkel is born. _Take himself out of the equation._ But what about Jonas? And Hannah?

He puts his head in his hands. Ines would tell him not to worry. Not that she knew all of this, she never really got too close to the real truths, but she would tell him not to worry all the same. Ines. _She isn't my mother._

Michael stares into nothing, the table perhaps, like it might hold the answers for questions he has long stopped asking. 

He has to do _something_ to occupy himself now that he's awake. Or else he'll go mad...  
-He'll make _toast hawaii_.

It doesn't matter that Ines used to always make it for him when he was upset, Michael is an adult now. He can help himself.

He rattles around the kitchen as quietly as he can, looking for a green tin of pineapple and a slice of bread. What else? Maraschino cherries. He doesn't have any.

He's grown to know that things don't change. He can't forget his old life, one he thought he never really had - when his own brother Magnus is walking past his window going to school each morning. 

He butters the bread quickly, desperate to distract himself, and drops it onto a baking tray. The oven hums to life. 

When Regina, the quiet girl from school, is the same Regina that used to frighten him in her big stern hotel. When his own mother invites him and Hannah over for dinner and he can't even think about going. _I can't have dinner with my own mother._

He layers a pineapple slice on, the bright yellow ring seems to be taunting him, _This isn't going to make you feel better._

Ines used to put the cherries on top with a cluck of her tongue. Sometimes he would do it instead and feel his fingers grow sticky with syrup. Now, since he has no cherries, Michael puts his lonely piece of toast hawaii in the oven piled with nothing but pineapple. 

Now that Mikkel will be born soon, ( _Me. That's me. I'm going to be born soon.)_ what is he meant to do? Watch himself grow up and make memories that Michael has already made? Have the same wretched fate that he already has? Live the same lies? Lose everything before he even knows what he has to lose?

_Mama._

His own voice. Mikkel's voice. Calling for mama, every night for years. He would cry and cry and then when he got older he carried it around inside of him. _Mama._ A cry for help. For someone, anyone, to take him back. This isn't how it's meant to be. He wants his mama. His papa. Magnus and Martha. His friends at school. He's always wanted them back. It has never went away. Now it just sits, like a hungry beast in the back of his mind. He feels like he's suffocating. One of these days he's going to have to do _something_ to-

"Papa?" A voice says from the doorway.

"Jonas? What are you doing out of bed?" Michael, having almost leapt out of his skin, whispers. 

Jonas is sucking his thumb, eyes wide. He is five years old and he _still_ sucks his thumb; Hannah is always worried it's a sign of something bad. Like Jonas isn't growing up but he's still just a child. Though sometimes, Jonas' eyes are so wide and full of awe at everything that Michael can't help but stop and wonder if his son knows _too_ much. Jonas is quiet but sometimes he just looks like he knows it _all_. 

Or maybe that's just Michael being paranoid. Too caught up in his own head. As always.

"What will your mama say? You shouldn't be up so late!!" Michael can't bring himself to be angry with his son. Kids. They work in strange ways. He remembers what it was like, to wonder into rooms just to soak up the action, to not feel bored.

Jonas looks solemn all the same.

"You want some some toast?" Michael offers, taking the lone slice out of the oven. The pineapple slice has bubbled and is speckled with golden brown. It smells like comfort. Or the closest thing Michael knows to be comfort anyway. 

Jonas nods. 

They share half the toast hawaii each. Michael cuts Jonas' into pieces, humming softly. This is what he's stayed for. Mikkel will be born soon. _He_ will be born soon. It's an idea that is too tempting - to simply not stick around to see it happen. But Jonas needs a father. Michael can at least try to give him that much.

They eat their toast quietly, Jonas describing in a fervent whisper a dream he had about space while he crams pineapple in his mouth. Michael eats his own toast and let's the memories of feeling loved by a woman who tried her best to be his mother, sink into him. The love he feels for Jonas warms him inside. Adults, he thinks, we don't really know what we're doing. Jonas is demonstrating a rocket ship blasting off with a piece of bread.

Maybe he'll hold onto this a little longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a total scene in my head where Hannah finds Michael and Jonas asleep on the sofa later that morning after spending the rest of the night playing games or watching tv lol...
> 
> Anyway I hope you enjoyed! Short and sweet enough to fill the Dark shaped hole in my heart.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just posting a fluff chapter where Hannah finds Michael and Jonas sleeping after their little night time snack!
> 
> I want to thank everyone who read and left kudos and especially The Terror Of My Ways (sealandreich), DWatson and Bubulona for their lovely comments! And also GaboBlue1004 for suggesting I actually write this chapter!
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> ^_^

_"Different? What do you mean he's different?" Papa had said._

Hannah is dreaming. Or more like, she is remembering. Remembering the first time Michael had come over to meet her papa. 

_"He's just a little quiet, papa. I don't want you to scare him! You know how much you like to talk. Don't start telling him the story about when you and Bernd got lost in the forest! It's embarrassing!" Hannah had pleaded, tugging at her hair in the mirror. She rolled her eyes at her reflection. Of course her freckles had chosen today to look particularly ugly. And her sweater was too small and the house is too messy and her papa is so embarrassing-_

_That's when the knock sounds on the door._

_"That's him! Act normal!" Hannah hissed at her papa, who decided to act as not normal as possible and stand right at the door like a guardsman. She rolled her eyes again and took a deep breath. It's just Michael._

_She opened the door and there he was, with a bunch of meadow flowers in his hand. Oh Michael. He was taller than her now and his face was so serious. He looked nervous._

_"Michael! Come in!" She had beamed as bright as possible._

_Michael had flashed her a small smile and then turned to her papa,_

_"Mr Krüger? It's nice to meet you." He had said in a gravely serious voice. He wasn't fooling around._

_Hannah's heart had swollen with pride. She loved him. He has the one! Look at how good he was! And sweet! And he had even brought flowers!_

_Papa had laughed his booming great big laugh and shook Michael's hand and let him in. She had kissed him on the cheek shyly and both their faces had burned bright red as Papa shepherded them around the house for a humble tour. He was so embarrassing-_

Hannah wakes up and feels a lazy smile cross her face. They had been so young and sweet. Michael was so well-mannered, even back then.

She reaches out across the bed for her husband's warmth. To cuddle him sleepily and whisper that she loves him. All that greets her is cold sheets.

"Michael?" She calls softly. She's half asleep still as she rubs her eyes. The sun shines in through the window so brightly it hurts a little. "Michael? Hallo?" 

Nothing. Just silence.

Maybe he's in the bathroom. It is late in the morning after all.

Hannah slips her feet into her slippers and gets out of bed. 

_Different? What do you mean he's different?_

_He's just a little quiet, papa._

He still is. Sometimes Hannah thinks he's in a world of his own. She can't even read him at all.

She goes to look for him.

*

"Michael?" Hannah's already checked the bathroom and his studio in the attic. Not a trace. 

Her slippers echo softly on the floors. Maybe he's in with Jonas. Their son loves for his papa to tell him bedtime stories. And it's always Michael that comforts Jonas when he has nightmares.

She peeks into Jonas' room. He's not there.

She thinks knows exactly where both of them are.

*

The kitchen is flooded with morning sun. On the table are two plates, an open pan of bread and a tin of pineapple slices.

Toast hawaii. Michael's childhood comfort food. Hannah has never really understood why he likes it so much, it tastes terrible. But it is Michael after all. He works in mysterious ways.

The faint sound of clapping comes from the living room. The TV. Hannah can't believe she didn't hear it sooner.

"Michael?" She calls quietly as she steps into the room.

"Oh."

There they are, bundled together under blankets on the sofa. Her boys. Michael is snoring softly. His face has that peaceful look on it, the one she's only ever seen a few times. Jonas' hair is sticking up like a fluffy duck. He has nestled his away under his papa's arm.

Jonas' toy train set is scattered across the floor. And so are his lego pieces and his spaceship models.

The tv is playing an old rerun of _Top Of The Pops._ From 1986. The year Michael came to Winden. The year they met.

Hannah watches them for a second, her husband and her son, just sleeping peacefully. Her love for them both makes it hard to think sometimes. To even function.

She fixes the blankets and plants a kiss on Michael's head first. _My love,_ she thinks to herself. Then Jonas. 

Hannah slips back into the kitchen to fix herself some breakfast. Maybe even a cup of coffee or two. She sits down and watches the sun rise on a new morning in Winden as Michael and Jonas snooze.


End file.
